News

Dot Marlow, 'our matriarch of philanthropy,' dies at age 85

Dot Marlow

By Bill Moss, Published: July 19, 2017

Dorothy Dellinger "Dot" Marlow, who died Tuesday at age 85, leaves a legacy of giving that prompted a friend to call her "our matriarch of philanthropy."

A retired First Union Bank vice president and the wife of the late Glenn C. Marlow, the former county schools superintendent, Dot Marlow served the county in numerous ways during her career in banking and marketing. In retirement she devoted even more time and energy to volunteering, fundraising and grooming a new generation of givers, many of them women in mid-career who were drawn to Marlow's extraordinary grace and sharp insight.

Marlow had been hospitalized in recent weeks and then released to hospice care at the Givens Estates Health Center, at the Asheville life-care center where she was a resident.

Always well-dressed and perfectly made up, Marlow brought a soft-spoken grace and impeccable manners to every meeting she attended and fundraiser she helped to lead. She brought sunshine and optimism to the table, friends and associates recalled, even when nonprofit boards struggled with intractable community needs.

Long a leader in civic life, Marlow expanded her volunteerism after her retirement from banking. After her husband's death in 1999, soon after his retirement as schools superintendent, she persevered with numerous projects that helped the community. She remained active in the Community Foundation, the Education Foundation, Johnson Farm, Glenn Marlow Elementary School, the Pardee Hospital Foundation and many other nonprofit agencies and causes in the Hendersonville area.

"She's our matriarch of philanthropy here in this community," said McCray Benson, executive director of the Henderson County Community Foundation. "The only thing she wasn't a part of was our original founding board but the older members of that said they were just the steering committee and she really was the original board."

A member of the foundation board from 1983 to 1991 and a vice president, "she was our first leader in the respect of actually helping develop the Community Foundation," Benson said. "She and Ken Youngblood would go out and start visiting folks and start talking about the Community Foundation. She was always a part of everything we did.

"When I came in as a new CEO she spent time with me and took me around and introduced me to the community," he added. "She certainly did a lot more than just Community Foundation. She helped with Johnson Farm, she was a champion for education in our community. When Glenn passed away, she and her family started a scholarship in his name. One of her greatest joys was meeting those scholarship recipients and getting to know them. I would say her greatest tool was her ability to use encouragement to guide people into doing more than they ever thought they could do. She looked at everything, no matter the challenge, as an opportunity.

"I can't say enough about Dot. She's going to be missed. She helped us learn how to carry the torch but now she's left it with us."

Marlow's giving spirit never wavered, even when she might have been able to relax upon her move to a tidy apartment in the Methodist Church-affiliated Givens Estates 11 years ago. No rocking chair could contain her. She drove, during the day, up until her death, making regular trips to Hendersonville for charitable work and to visit old friends.

"There is hardly a charitable organization in Henderson County that she didn't touch," said her daughter Valorie Songer. "She remained active when she moved to Givens Estate and she remained active here (at her new home)," taking on a fundraising project for the Givens Estates chapel and other projects.

"She just felt so strongly about giving back to the community you're in," Songer said. "She had a very strong faith and part of living that out was helping other people and giving back."

Longtime friends admired Marlow not only for her giving spirit but for her sense of humor and openness to anyone who called on her deep knowledge of her adopted hometown.

"She wanted to make this place an even better place to live," said Ruth Birge, who met Marlow when she moved to Hendersonville as publisher of the Times-News. "I've known her ever since I've been here. She's one of the first people I met, probably like everybody else who moved here" and had a need to find out what made the community tick. "She put everybody at ease."

In her banking career, she mentored up-and-coming youngsters like Tom Apodaca, who became a powerful state senator, and Ross Sloan, a fast riser who is now an executive at TD Bank.

"She just put them under her wing and taught them what they needed to do," Birge said. In addition, "she's had a huge impact on lots and lots of women."

"These last two weeks she's had the most amazing faith," she said.

Released from Mission Hospital into hospice care at Givens Estate, Dot knew that she would be receiving friends and she'd only receive friends if she was properly dressed and made up in a way that showed respect.

"One of the interesting things that happened was when she was released from Mission, somebody went to see her. They went to the room and they said, 'Where's Mrs. Marlow?' 'Oh, she's in the beauty shop.'"

Born in 1932 in Lincolnton, she graduated from Brevard College, spent a career of 26 years in banking and lived in the Hendersonville area for the past 65 years.

She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Hendersonville, where she taught the Alma Lee Cheves Sunday School class up until her illness a few weeks ago, and was active in the United Methodist Women and other church committees.

She was active in the Henderson County community, having served as president of United Way and as a board member of the Community Foundation of Henderson County, the Hendersonville Symphony, the Chamber of Commerce, the Pardee Memorial Hospital, the Pardee Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Pardee Hospital Chaplaincy Association. She also served on the Boards of Givens Estates Retirement Community, Historic Johnson Farm, and SSEACO-Something Special, now Vocational Solutions. She was an active volunteer at the Historic Johnson Farm and at Glenn C. Marlow Elementary School. She was an honorary member of Delta Kappa Gamma and served as a trustee of Brevard College. She was active on committees at Givens Estates and sang in the Givens choir.

Mrs. Marlow was selected as one of Henderson County’s top 50 outstanding leaders by WHKP in 1996. She was the 1977 VFW Woman of the Year and recipient of the 2005 Sauer Charitable Leadership Award from the Henderson County Community Foundation. She was inducted into the Henderson County Education Foundation Hall of Fame in 2006. Dot was awarded the Pardee Hospital Foundation’s Philanthropist of the Year in 2010 and received the Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser Award from the WNC Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2006. She was inducted into the Brevard College Hall of Fame in 1998.

She was predeceased by her parents, Samuel Thomas Dellinger and Bertha Mae Dellinger, her husband of 47 years, Glenn C. Marlow, seven brothers and sisters, and her son-in-law, Dr. Donald R. Songer. Survivors include daughters, Valorie Marlow Songer of Columbia, S.C.; Glenna Marlow White and her husband, Richard A. White of Charlotte; and Dottie Marlow Kinlaw and her husband, Dr. John L. Kinlaw of Rutherfordton; a son, Jeffrey A. Marlow, and his wife, Dr. Sherri H. Marlow of Harrisburg; grandchildren Michael J. Songer (Erica), Julie Songer Belman (Travis), Avery White, Anna White, John Cobb, Jacob Kinlaw, Clare Kinlaw and Nicholas Glenn Marlow; and great-grandchildren James, Raymond and Marlow Belman.

A Celebration of Life service will be held at First United Methodist Church at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 22. The family will receive friends following the service in the Christian Life Center at the church. A private burial will be held in Shepherd Memorial Park.

Memorials may be made to the Dorothy Dellinger Marlow Scholarship Fund at Brevard College, One Brevard College Drive, Brevard, NC 29712 or to the Glenn Marlow Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation of Henderson County, P.O. Box 1108, Hendersonville, NC 28793.

For more on Dot Marlow's life and legacy return to the Hendersonville Lightning.